Rupert Murdoch's debasing taste
By Sidney Blumenthal
Created Nov 30 2006 - 8:45am
Rupert Murdoch's suppression of OJ Simpson's hypothetical confession of
double murder, If I Did It, after contracting, printing and distributing
400,000 copies of it, as well as producing a two-part interview with Simpson
[1] for broadcast on Fox TV, demarcates, at least for now, the outer limit
of Murdoch's indecency. Yet his brief two-sentence statement contains not a
glimmer of acknowledgment of any moral element of his quandary.
Murdoch's press release is a perfectly pitched production of false deference
and anxious deflection. "I and senior management agree with the American
public that this was an ill-considered project", Murdoch said, as though
this were the first time it had occurred to anyone at his publishing
company, HarperCollins, that paying Simpson $3.5 million to hold forth on
murdering his wife and her friend might not reflect prudent judgment.
Murdoch's invocation of the wisdom of "the American people" inadvertently
describes him and his executives as lacking in their own independent
judgment, deferring to "the American people" as a nebulous corporate
executive committee and deciding to "agree" with them before being trampled.
But the appeal to "the American people" also cleverly implies that Murdoch
and his executives had nothing to do with the Simpson project [2] and were
as innocent as couch potatoes, as if both they and "the American people"
were outsiders to News Corp.
"We are sorry for any pain this has caused the families of Ron Goldman and
Nicole Brown Simpson", Murdoch concluded [3]. This was a line undoubtedly
written by News Corp. attorneys to deflect potential lawsuits from the
families of the murder victims. But this lawyerly crafted apology, such as
it was, was not the limit of Murdoch's heartfelt response.
Denise Brown, sister of the murdered Nicole, told NBC's Today show that News
Corp. offered her family and the Goldman family proceeds from the Simpson
book as a form of hush money but that she said: "Absolutely not." "There
were no strings attached", a News Corp. spokesman explained. Of course,
there was no suggestion of obligation in receiving millions of dollars from
the likes of Rupert Murdoch.
If I Did It from beginning to end, perfectly encapsulates how Murdoch does
it - down to his inability to discuss the squalid deal as anything other
than a commercial property gone awry. A peasant uprising of Fox affiliates
that suddenly refused to air the interview forced his heavy hand. Had the TV
stations remained passive transmitters, Murdoch would have gone ahead as
planned. The unintentional irony of Fox affiliates finally protesting the
airing of something that is almost certainly true - never having raised a
peep about the endless stream of Fox falsehoods [4] - was lost in the din.
When Fox News [5] talk-show host and self-described "traditionalist" Bill
O'Reilly, warming up for his annual campaign [6] against "the war on
Christmas", jumped into the fray, seizing upon the OJ interview as a
platform for publicity, the controversy reached a critical mass of hilarity.
O'Reilly proclaimed the cancellation of the Simpson interview "a culture war
victory", and said, "News Corp. led by Rupert Murdoch did the right thing."
Murdoch might be gratified that O'Reilly's bellowing promoted one Fox show,
albeit at the expense of another. It's the only consolation Murdoch gained
from the incident.
The main chance
Understandably, Murdoch failed to mention that this was not the first time
he had suppressed a book. In 1998, he attempted to censor criticism of the
Chinese government in the memoir East and West, written by Christopher
Patten [7], the last British governor of Hong Kong. Murdoch, of course, has
extensive commercial holdings in China requiring government approval. When
Patten refused to knuckle under to Murdoch's line editing, HarperCollins
declined to publish the book. Breaking his contract, Murdoch accused Patten
of double-dealing and bad faith.
It was the usual transparent Murdoch projection. The News Corp. publicity
department issued a statement: "Rupert Murdoch did not agree with many of
Patten's positions in Hong Kong which he thought abrogated promises made by
the previous government." The editor at HarperCollins [8] resigned in
protest. And Patten said, "I don't see how you can be in favour of free
speech in one part of the world and less keen on it in another."
Hypocrisy, however, has never caused Murdoch a self-reflective moment of
hesitation. His high-flown rhetoric about "diversity" and "liberty" in
media, echoed by teams of publicists and polemicists in his employ, is
simply cover for his expansion motives. The Australian-born mogul [9] turned
United States citizen owes allegiance above all to his piratical self.
Citizenship, like everything else, is a commercial proposition. The flag he
flies is the Jolly Roger.
Murdoch's reputation as a conservative derives from his enthusiastic support
for the Margaret Thatcher government in Britain through his panoply of high-
and low-end newspapers there. (And HarperCollins bestowed a $5.4 million
book advance on Thatcher [10] for her memoirs.)
Meanwhile, in Australia, Murdoch was a backer of a Labour government. When
the Tories looked like losers in Britain, he switched almost overnight into
a supporter of Tony Blair's New Labour. In the US during the Reagan period
he supported the ascendant Republicans. When the GOP took control of
Congress in 1994 he not only founded a neo-conservative magazine, the Weekly
Standard [11], as a loss leader for influence, but also gave the new House
speaker, Newt Gingrich, a $4.5 million advance for a book just as Congress
was considering telecommunications legislation that would directly benefit
Murdoch. In the furore after the book deal was disclosed, Gingrich felt
compelled to return his advance. But Murdoch still got his benefit, which,
in 1996, cleared the way for him to launch Fox News.
This year, sensing the tide against Republicans, Murdoch's wretchedly
rightwing tabloid the New York Post begrudgingly endorsed Senator Hillary
Clinton for re-election, an abrupt reversal after sliming the Clintons for
more than a decade. To anyone who has tracked Murdoch's peripatetic career,
the endorsement was consistent with his opportunism. When Murdoch says "the
free market", it translates as "the main chance".
The argument for Murdoch's authenticity is that as an Australian, even as
the scion of a provincial press lord, he was something of an outsider and
outrider, and he came by his antagonism to establishments everywhere
honestly. Thus his attraction to Thatcher, who rattled the eye-teeth of the
Tories, can be explained. On the other hand, he always follows power
magnetically.
It's difficult, furthermore, to take a thrice-divorced adulterous man at his
word when he says, as Murdoch did in 1988 about the presidential campaign of
the Reverend Pat Robertson, "He's right on all the issues." Perhaps Murdoch
best captured the essence of his own outlook in his pithy remark favouring
the invasion of Iraq: "The greatest thing to come out of this [war in Iraq]
for the world economy ... would be $20 a barrel for oil. That's bigger than
any tax cut in any country." Applying to him the rule "follow the money"
never fails to elucidate.
In any case, the most interesting thing about Murdoch is not his vulgar
Marxism but his penchant for vulgarity. He has some intangible need for
degradation that evidently cannot be assuaged by piles of loot. Murdoch's
media empire is a kingdom of kitsch. Whether as entertainment or news, talk
shows or song contests, the aesthetic is consistent. (The ironic social
commentary of The Simpsons, not to be confused with OJ Simpson, is the
exception that proves that rule.)
Murdoch's programming almost invariably traffics in faux-populist identities
of the privileged and powerful battling phantom (liberal) elites.
Murdoch-ism aims to unmask the great and the good as charlatans, frauds and
crooks, proving that even as they masquerade as worthy they are really as
cynical as he is. The programmes delight in bullying and humiliating little
people to provide vicarious drama for viewers similar in social background
to those being embarrassed but who feel bigger and stronger and identify
with the cranks posing as domineering father figures.
This sadomasochistic exchange appeals to the authoritarian conservative
personality. The hip Simon Cowell, host of American Idol [12], is just a
variation on the theme of Bill O'Reilly, with the notable difference that he
has an actual talent as a music producer.
The base instinct
And why shouldn't Murdoch continue to treat "the American people" [13] as
Pavlovian subjects to be titillated and aroused endlessly by his
well-grooved methods? A study of voters for President Bush in the 2004
election conducted by social scientists at the University of Maryland's
Programme on International Policy Attitudes [14] determined that most of
them overwhelmingly believed that Saddam Hussein was linked to al-Qaida,
that he had been personally involved in the terrorist attacks of 11
September, that weapons of mass destruction (WMD) existed in Iraq, and that
WMD had indeed been found. These Bush voters occupied a "parallel universe",
citing the administration and Fox News as validators of the fervently held
falsehoods that were the building-blocks of their worldviews.
The OJ Simpson [15] project was intended to debase everyone involved, but
particularly "the American people", held in utter contempt as hungry
consumers of tabloid trash, whose imbibing of the Murdoch product would
enable their superior loathing and resentment of the black man who gets away
with murder and is paid handsomely to boot. As Murdoch takes the money and
runs, the joke's on them. At least that's the business plan.
Judith Regan [16], packager extraordinaire, whose ReganBooks is the greatest
profit centre at HarperCollins, impresario of If I Did It (the book and the
TV show), even serving as OJ's TV interviewer, is the ideal representative
of Murdoch-ism, far more vital (and cost-effective) than the bleached
neoconservative nasty boys on the payroll. Her bestselling titles include
How to Make Love Like a Porn Star, Juiced and Sex, Sex, and More Sex. "I'm
not running a philanthropic library, OK?" she explained to the LA Weekly.
Before the Simpson project, she branched out into "docudrama", becoming
executive producer of Growing Up Gotti and The Other Man: John F. Kennedy
Jr., Carolyn Bessette and Me. She boasted of her affair with the married and
corrupt Bernard Kerik, former New York police commissioner, whose memoir,
The Lost Son, Regan Books [17] published in 2001. Kerik lavished her with
his highest compliments: "She is brash, very assertive, extremely demanding,
and talks like a man", he said. Regan, for her part, has described herself
as "an average American with a two-minute attention span."
In the early days of the expected uproar over the Simpson project, Regan
issued a bizarrely incoherent but revealing eight-page statement, which she
titled, "Why I Did It." She sets the scene by describing watching the 1995
verdict in the Simpson case with Howard Stern. "Many of you probably
remember where you were at that moment," she writes. Then she recounts being
beaten up and abandoned by an abusive husband, implicitly comparing herself
to murder victim Nicole Brown Simpson.
She draws out the theme of her victimisation [18], blaming the media for
complaining about her Simpson production. "In the past few days, since the
announcement of the forthcoming book and televised interview If I Did It, it
has been strange watching the media spin the story", she writes. "They have
all but called for my death for publishing his book and for interviewing
him." Publishing the faux confessions of a murderer, therefore, potentially
exposed her to being murdered herself for her bravery as a free-speech
advocate - Nicole with a cause.
Yet Regan felt compelled to explain that she didn't approve of Simpson - and
then compared him to Hitler. "'To publish' does not mean 'to endorse'; it
means 'to make public.' If you doubt that, ask the mainstream publishers who
keep Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf in print to this day." As she sought refuge
in the reductio ad Hitlerum argument, mindlessly conflating the Brentwood
killings with the Holocaust, she seemed to be reaching out to Hitler's
agent. If only, through time-travel, she could do the two-part TV interview.
But the controversy spun out of Regan's control and she incited a sectarian
civil war within News Corp. With Murdoch's cancellation, Regan must tend to
other titles, like her recently published How to Make Money Like a Porn Star
and soon-to-be-released Outrage: How Liberals ... and the Democratic Party
Are Ripping Us Off ... and What to Do About It, by Dick Morris.
For Rupert Murdoch, If I Did It is unlikely to reverse how he does it.
Obloquy, even coming from Fox affiliates and the oafish grandstander
O'Reilly, will only momentarily slow him but hardly discourage his basic
instincts. Despite his spiking of the Simpson project, there is something
elemental that attracts Murdoch to the debased and inspires him to debase
others.
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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
